From the blog of the man who wrote the book I'm currently reading, forwarded to me by tagger.
From a speech by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives, July 4, 1821:
"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion of vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her own example. She well knows that by once enlisting under banners other than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, ambition, which assumed the colors and usurped the standards of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . . . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit"